COVID-19 Rekindles Discussion on Climate Change, Infectious Disease – The Energy Mix
“We don’t know with COVID, what role if any the climate effects that we’re already seeing in species around the world may have had on the risk of this disease emerging,” he stresses. But a warming climate has already triggered “this extraordinary migration to the poles”, as species scramble to escape the heat. “That has led to the spread of pathogens, because animals that carry pathogens came in contact with other animals that didn’t carry those pathogens, and there was transmission.”
So “the bottom line here is that if you wanted to prevent the spread of pathogens, the emergence of pathogens, as we see not just with people and COVID, but as well with wildlife, you wouldn’t transform the climate. Because that forces species to come into contact with other species that may be vulnerable to infections. There are lots of forces, and habitat loss is a major contributor to it.”